The building works draw to a close

The scaffolding has gone from the back of Millbrooker Towers as well as the front now. Graham is seen in the photo doing a bit of tidying up after himself in the back yard. At last we have a completed and rather lovely new roof with a new pair of dormers at the back and real slates instead of compressed fibre ones.

All we have to do now is sit and tremble in trepidation at the size of the final bill; the original estimate will have been well and truly bust as the job started in early July (we've had the pleasure of Graham's company almost every day since then) and was expected to take about two months. Some of the time was lost to the appalling weather we've all suffered this summer; some was lost to a two century old house with more things wrong with it than we thought. Those things are now no longer wrong, however: hooray!

To cap it all throughout the last weeks of the building work and ensuing chaos, we helped to clear out Mrs The Millbrooker's dad's old place in Looe and have had the sitting room full (and I do mean full) of extraneous furniture. This is also slowly being sorted. The reward for all this is that we now have a lovely new sofa. It's huge and brown and leather. Here it is in the background, complete with one Rob sitting on it, whilst Mrs The Millbrooker struggles with another piece of furniture. I like to think I was helping by recording the moment for posterity, but I may have just been getting in the way and being annoying when I should have been being busy.

We have a new sofa; Trelawney has a new box. He's virtually moved into the box that the parish newsletters were delivered in from the printers. Keeps him out of trouble and out of the way - not an easy task as anyone who's met the ridiculous creature will agree: